


Cost of Doing Business

by nilchance



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 11:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4624029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nilchance/pseuds/nilchance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jolene and Jensen's sister during the time the Losers are presumed dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cost of Doing Business

The truth is, Shannon never really got along with her ex. Jake called it the first time he came over for dinner: Ray was a douchebag on the rocks, no chaser, and she knew it ever before he knocked her up. But she liked douchebags then, she liked the smooth line and the rough treatment, and she didn't take her punk kid brother at his word until it was too late.

She doesn't regret her daughter, not even for a minute. But she does sometimes regret the look she sees in Diana's eyes as her teammates' daddies or grandparents gather around.

No husband, no parents (ha), no boyfriends. Not too many friends; she doesn't have the time, between work and Di's homework, for much more than faceplanting into bed after.

The truth is, Jake's most of what she's got. So when two men in suits show up at her door, their government car on her goddamn flowers, her heart cracks wide open.  
****  
When Shannon goes to pick up the dogtags, Jolene is there. They have to leave the shadow of that great bloated warehouse before Shannon can breathe. They go to get ice cream, on Jolene's suggestion, and sit at the picnic tables together while Diana apathetically pushes herself on the swings. (Shannon thinks of the time Jake pushed Diana so high and so long that Diana threw up; now it makes her heart hurt to remember that she'd yelled at him.)

"I don't believe it," Jolene says. She has a hand fisted in her back, lines of pain around her eyes. "You believe it?

Shannon shakes her head. "Those boys wouldn't-- not kids."

 _Maybe it was an accident,_ whispers a dark voice in her head. _Maybe he got angry like Dad._

She knuckles her burning eyes. She hasn't thought of her father in years.

"I don't believe it," Jolene repeats, and exhales shakily. She's furious; Shannon doesn't feel much of anything at all.  
****  
Four months.

People at work vary in their sympathy. Her boss offers her time off and a box of kleenex. One of her coworkers whispers in the bathroom to another about that girl's brother and how sad it is he went crazy, but don't you know the same thing happened in Vietnam? Shannon wants to scream at her, at them both for being mean-spirited vultures, but in the end she creeps out of the bathroom and goes back to her cubicle. She is stupidly ashamed of her brother for the first time since he was a teenager.

Ray calls, drunk as fuck, and spits things about how he knew Jake would go off one day. He did the same thing when pictures from Abu Ghirab came out, though, so Shannon feels okay about hanging up on him. She feels less okay about pitching her phone out the back door.

Jolene stays with them a while, because Shannon knows Pooch saved (has saved, is saving, will have saved) Jake more times than she can count. She accompanies Jolene to ultrasounds, to OB appointments and shopping trips, because it's the only thing she can do.

Diana cries herself to sleep. Her grades tank. She plays soccer like a little blonde fury and gets yellow flags and she cries harder when Shannon tries to be stern about it.

Shannon has dreams and wakes, her hands outstretched to catch someone who's falling.  
****  
The call comes on her cell phone. She's actually on her way to get something as a hey-congrats present for Jolene, standing in the baby aisle at Target with her brain cycling through empty; she picks up the phone without checking the ID, already talking, "hey, sweetie, maybe you could see if you could get a ride home with Janet--?"

"Well," Jake says, "I think that might actually raise more questions than it solves, but okay."

Shannon drops her phone. Stands there for a minute, her heart going crazy, and waits to wake up. When she doesn't, she swears long and loud (one of the privileges of being a Marine brat, she guesses) and retrieves her cell. There's a mom giving her looks that might set her head on fire if she wasn't immune.

Hand shaky, she puts the phone to her ear. Gets another sweet throb of adrenaline because Jake is still talking, like he didn't even really notice that she dropped him, all "I mean, I guess I should've met you at home or something but I need a ride from the airport, are you still there? are you driving? you're not driving, are you?" and she laughs until she finally, finally cries.  
****  
When she gets to the airport, one of Jake's team is with him, their knees bumping companionably together. It's Cougar, the one Jake first mentions to her, the first time he ever mentioned anybody he ever worked with. (Except for the one time he said something about his CO, and a code red like A Few Good Men, and she thinks he was kidding but she's not sure.) On the off times that Jake comes home, she's seen Cougar trailing them around town, which is creepy and sweet and then creepy again. She thinks maybe he doesn't have anywhere to go.

When she gets close enough to hear Jake's motormouth, he's telling the poor guy, "I dig you, man, but if you look at my sister wrong, I'll rip your dick off."

Cougar looks unconcerned. Then he catches her eye and nods to her, murmurs something to Jake that has him ricocheting out of his seat like it has springs. Jake looks like he got dragged behind a car for a few miles, all skinny and sun-burned, and there's something wrong with the line of his arm. But he beams at her, like always, and tries to lift her off her feet with the force of his hug.

"Oh, honey," she says into his neck, and squeezes him back. "Your arm."

"Don't worry about it." Jake puts her down, holds her at arms length. "Wow, you look crappy. Did you bring--"

"Sorry," she says, and rubs her hand backwards over the scruff of his head. "She's at home. I thought... anyway, I missed you."

Jake grins at her, ducks his head a little. "Yeah. I missed you too."

Cougar pretends to see something very interesting on the other side of the airport while they get another hug in. It's nice enough of him that she hugs him, too, which makes Jake prickly and uncomfortable, and she thinks it might be a mistake until Cougar goes from tense to leaning into her in about 3.5 seconds. If he wasn't Jake's friend, she'd be all over that. 

"Hey," Jake says, "um, is it cool if he crashes on the couch? Is it cool if I crash on the couch? Not at the same time."

Cougar backs out of her hug, tipping down his hat to cover his eyes like this is all terribly embarrassing. Shannon smothers her grin in another hug for Jake, who makes protesting noises that time. Big bad spooks that they are, or were, and she needs to get the truth of those poor dead kids out of him sooner than later. They have time now. Nothing but time.

"Of course," she tells him, and adds, unspoken, _you're most of what I've got._


End file.
